Tuesday, November 03, 2015

Gage,
born into a Surrey recusant family c.1603, educated at St Omer and Valladolid, disowned
by his father when he became a Dominican rather than a Jesuit, travelled to the
Philippines in 1625, embarking by being hidden in barrel of dry biscuit (for
English friars were designated for missions to England). He was in various
parts of the Spanish New World until 1637; accruing plenty of money. On his
voyage home, pirates took £8,000 in coin and jewels off him. Finally back in
England, he converted to the Church of England 1642, and informed against
Catholic priests, sending three to the gallows. As the ODNB life says, his The English-American his Travail
by Sea and Land, or, A New Survey of the West Indias(1648)
was “the first book by an English writer—in fact, the first book not by a
Habsburg subject—portraying daily life in Spanish America”. He
died in 1656.

Gage
seems to have been very much in conflict about his church, his mission, and his
aims in life. His account of his travels is very vivid, whether describing
earthquakes or being infested with jiggers in the soles of your feet. But when
it came to a witchcraft matter, he sounds very much to have responded as a true
Dominican, in an inquisitorial fashion:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

InPinola[Gage
acted as priest for two towns, Mixco and Pinola in Guatemala, c.1635]there were some who were much given to Witchcraft, and by
the power of the Devil did act strange things; amongst the rest there was one
old woman named Martha de Carillo,who
had been by some of the Town formerly accused for bewitching many; but theSpanishJustices quitted her, finding no sure
evidence against her; with this she grew worse and worse, and did much harm;
when I was there, two or three died,withering away,declaring at their death that thisCarillohad killed them, and that theysaw heroften about their beds,
threatning them with a frowning and angry look.

TheIndiansfor fear of her durst not complain
against her, nor meddle with her; whereupon I sent word untoDon Juan de Guzmanthe Lord of that Town, that if he took not order with
her, she would destroy his Town. He hearing of it, got for me a Commission from
the Bishop and another Officer of the Inquisition to make diligent and private
inquiry after her life and actions, which I did, and found among theIndiansmany and grievous complaints against
her, most of the Town affirming that certainly she was a notorious witch, and
that before her former accusation she was wont whithersoever she went about the
Town to go with aDuckfollowing her, which when she came to
the Church would stay at the door till she came out again, and then would return
home with her, which Duck they imagined was her beloved Devil and familiar
Spirit, for that they had often set dogs at her and they would not meddle with
her, but rather run away from her. This Duck never appeared more with her,sinceshe was formerly accused
before the Justice, which was thought to be her policy, that she might be no
more suspected thereby.

This old woman was a widow, and of thepoorestof
the Town in outward shew, and yet she had always store ofMoney,which none could tell which way she
might come by it. Whilst I was thus taking privy informationagainst her (it being the Time
ofLent,when all the Town came to Confession)
she among the rest came to the Church toconfessher sins, and brought me the best
present and offering of all the Town; for whereas a Riall is Common, she
brought me four, and besides, aTurky, Eggs, Fish,and a little bottle ofhony.She
thought thereby to get with me a better opinion than I had of her from the
whole Town. I accepted of her great offering, and heard her Confession, which
was of nothing but trifles, which could scarce be judged sinful actions.

I examined
her very close of what was the common judgment of all theIndians,and especially of those who dying, had
declared to my selfat their deaththat she had bewitched them, and
before their sickness hadthreatnedthem,
and in their sicknessappearedthreatning
them with death about their beds, none but they themselves seeing her To which
she replyed weeping that she was wronged. I asked her,howshe
being a poor widow without any sons to help her, without any means of livelyhood
had so much mony as to give me more than the richest of the Town;howshe
came by that Fish, Turkey, and Hony, having none of this of her own about her house?
to which shereplyed,that God loved her and gave her all these
things, and that with her mony she bought the rest. Iaskedher of whom?Sheansweredthat
out of the Town she had them.

I persuaded her to much repentance, and to
forsake the Devil and all fellowship with him; but her words and answers were
of a Saintly and holy Woman; and she earnestly desired me to give her theCommunionwith the rest that were to receive the
next day. Which I told her I durst not do, using Christs words, Give not the childrens
bread unto dogs, nor cast your pearls unto swine; and it would be a great scandal
to give the Communion unto her, who was suspected generally, and had been accused
for aWitch.This she took very ill, telling me
that she had many years receivedthe Communion, and now in
her old age it grieved her to be deprived of it, her tears were many, yet I
could not be moved with them, but resolutely denied her the Communion, and so
dismissed her.

At noon when I had done my work in the Church, I bad my servants
go to gather up the offerings, and gave order to have thefishdressed
for my dinner which she had brought, but no sooner was it carried into the
Kitchen, when the Cook looking on it found itfull of Maggots,and stinking; so that
I was forced to hurl it away; with that I began to suspect my old Witch, and
went to look on herhony, and
pouring it out into a dish, I found it full ofworms;hereggsI
could not know from others, there being near a hundred offered that day, but
after as I used them, we found somerotten,some withdead chickens in them; the next morning
theTurkeywas
found dead; As for her fourRials,I could not perceive whether she had bewitched
them out of my pocket, for that I had put them with many other, which that day
had been given given me, yet as far as I could I called to memorywhoandwhathad
been given me, and in my judgment and reckoning I verily thought that I missedfourRials;

At Night when my servants theIndians
were gone to bed, I sat up late in my chamber betaking my self to my books
and study, for I was the next morning to make an exhortation to those that received
the Communion. After I had studied a while, it being between ten and eleven of
the clock; on a sudden thechief doorin the hall (where in a lower room was
my chamber, and the servants, andthree otherdoors) flewopen,and I heard onecomein,and for a while walk about;then wasanotherdoor
opened which went into a little room,where
my saddles were laid; with this I thought it might be the Black-MoorMiguel Dalva,who would often come late to my house
to lodge there, especially since my fear ofMontenegro,and I conjectured that he was laying
up his saddle, I called unto him by his name two or three times, from within my
chamber, but no answer was made, but suddenlyanother doorthat went out to a Garden flew also
open, wherewith I began within tofear,my joynts trembled, my hair stood up, I
would have called out to the servants, and my voice was as it were stopped with
the sudden affrightment;

I began to think of the Witch, and put my trust in God
against her and encouraged my self and voice, calling out to the servants, and
knocking with a Cane at my door within that they might hear me, for I durst not
open it and go out; with the noise that I made the servants awaked, and came out
to my chamber door; then I opened it, and asked them if they had not heard some
body in the hall, and all the doors opened, they said they were asleep, and
heard nothing, only oneboysaid heheard all,and related unto me thesamethat
I had heard; I took my candle then in my hand and went out with them into the hall
to view thedoors,and I found them allshut,as
the servants said they had left them.

Then I perceived that theWitchwould
have affrighted me, but had no power to do me any harm; I made two of the
servants lie in my chamber, and went to bed; in the morning early I sent for myFiscalthe Clerk of the Church, and told him what
had happen'd that night, he smiled upon me, and told me it was the WiddowCarillo,who had often played such tricks in
the Town with those that had offended her, and therefore he had the night
before come unto me from her, desiring me to give her the Communion, lest she
should do me some hurt, which I denied unto him, as I had done to her self; the
Clerk bad me be of good cheer, for he knew she had no power over me to do me
any hurt. After the Communion that day, some of the chiefIndianscame unto me, and told me that oldCarillohadboastedthat she would play mesome trickor other, because I would not give her
the Communion. But I, to rid the Town of such a Limb of Satan, sent her toGuatemala,with all the evidences and witnesses
which I had found against her, unto the president and Bishop, who commanded her
to be put in Prison, where she died within two months.

Monday, October 12, 2015

It was clearly one
of the hazards of urban living in early modern London that, if the door of your
house offered even the shallowest of entryways, offering partial concealment
from the street, someone might avail themselves of this, and in the absence of
public toilets, unload on your doorstep.

The astrologer
John Lilly lived in a house with an advertisement on the wall outside, which proclaimed
it to be the house of Merlinus Verax, the Truth-telling Merline. But one of the stories
told in mockery of Lilly (being out-prognosticated by a dun cow,
incapable of foreseeing that a whore will pick his pocket, etc.) was a much-repeated
tale of a countryman, robbed in London, who was advised to consult Lilly (for astrologers
would describe thieves to allow their clients to reclaim stolen goods). In this
yarn, the doorstep of Lilly’s well-advertised house proves to have been defiled
with excrement. When Lilly answered the door, he forgets his proper role and
exclaimed: ‘If he did but know who did
him that nasty trick, he would make them Examples to all such Roagues so long as they liv’d;Nay, quoth the Countreyman, if he cannot tell who beshit his door,
he can as well be hang’d as tell me who had my Purse’ (Lil-lies
Lamentations, or Englands feigned Prophet Discovered, p. 6-7).

Lilly forgot
himself. He had also forgotten that there was a useful recourse for any
householder so offended, a piece of sympathetic magic given in Jean Baptiste
vanHelmont’s A ternary of
paradoxes the magnetick cure of wounds, nativity of tartar in wine, image of
God in man / written originally by Joh. Bapt. Van Helmont and translated,
illustrated and amplified by Walter Charleton.

“Hath any one with his excrements defiled the threshold of thy door, and
thou intendest to prohibit that nastiness for the future, do but lay a red-hot
iron upon the excrement, and the immodest sloven shall, in a very short space,
grow scabby on his buttocks; the fire torrifying the excrement, and by dorsal
Magnetism driving the acrimony of the burning, into his impudent anus.
Perchance, you will object, that this action is Satanical, in regard the end of
it is revenge, and the laesion of the party, which offended us; but assuredly,
the abuse of such powers depends on the liberty of mans will,
and yet the use is no whit the less natural.”

I love the expression ‘impudent anus’, and the dignified riposte to the
view that this constitutes taking a Satanical revenge: this is just natural
magic, which could be abused, but not in this case.

Thursday, April 02, 2015

After the hoopla about Richard III's putative bones (hmm, he was a blue-eyed blonde, was he, and his DNA also indicates a break in the male Plantagenet line? - but surely there's another possible explanation for those awkward details) comes another instance of our insatiable need for relics (but as we have been a Protestant nation, royal relics rather than saintly ones).Making a stir today is Jonathan Foyle, with his highly authentic looking Tudor bed, and the pamphlet presenting his research and iconographic deductions generously posted at: http://gio6v3sgme0lorck1bp74b12.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Bed-of-Roses-leaflet.pdfAnd the press adores it, with the Daily Mail, always keen on anything royal with a procreative aspect to it, giving one of the more substantial accounts.The pdf is slightly difficult to read (not as a fault of Foyle's prose, I mean that it doesn't display well, and on my PC it's slow to scroll through). This is a snip of the page that I find most worrying:

Now what I would like him to be clearer about is how that banderole that folds across Adam and Eve's genitals acquired its inscription. It is clearly part of the original design to have the scroll there for text. These are among the best images, from Foyle and others:

Now, I haven't seen the bed at all, I am passing judgement from photographs: such is the dubious wonder of the internet. Foyle argues that this bed design is from 1486, and in it, Adam and Eve are meant to be somehow both recognisable as a younger Henry VII and Elizabeth of York and, at another level of symbolism, be understood as Christ and his mother trampling on sin.

Foyle apparently wants one to believe that the scroll had been left un-incised in 1486, and the later Protestant owner took advantage of that: "the carved band on the headboard was inscribed with the 1537-49 Bible text he [Stanley] used: "The Stinge of Death is Sinne; the Strengthe of Sinne is the Lawe (I Corinthians 15: 56)". I suppose this could have been done, if the bed were taken apart and this section laid flat, for carving into such a lattice unsupported would have been risky.

*** To update, I have just found this further image on Jonathan Foyle's Twitter account: it gives his argument about the text:

***

As Foyle perhaps knows, but opts not to mention, that seems to be a text from Tyndale's 1534 translation (no point, of course, in looking for an earlier vernacular version). Now, that's making it very Protestant indeed, from such a classic passage in his New Testament that it seems amazing that the banderole accommodated it so nicely - almost as if it had been designed to do so. Foyle merely remarks that this later addition of text "simplified the subject as Adam and Eve sinning, as acceptable to Protestants".

But is it 'simplifying' to quote from this passage: "When this corruptible hath put on incorruptibilite & this mortall hath put on immortalite: then shalbe brought to passe the sayinge that is written. Deeth is consumed in to victory. Deeth where is thy stynge? Hell where is thy victory? The stynge of deeth is synne: and the strength of synne is the lawe. But thanks be unto God which hath geven us victory thorow oure Lorde Jesus Christ"?

The message on the bed head recollects in its universally familiar iconography that the first marriage led to original sin. Such disobedience should not be repeated. This, with Tyndale's knotty verse makes for some bracing sentiments for a matrimonial bed. The passage cited went from Tyndale into Coverdale's Bible, and thence into the Book of Common Prayer, in the service for the Burial of the Dead. I take it to mean something along the lines of 'sin makes us know the sting of death; what is strong over death is observance of God's law' - so far, so very Protestant, and then the redemption itself mentioned in the next sentence.

In short, there's one major objection to Foyle's interesting and elaborate interpretation that "Henry and Elizabeth are shown as Christ and the Virgin, saviours who rescued mankind from evil", and that's the text incised on the banderole. Foyle notes the similarity to Speed's frontispiece in his Genealogies of Holy Scriptures, 1611. Protestants just loved Adam and Eve. The design seems made to incorporate the inscription and to give it central importance, and so it's hard to imagine the banderole was ever blank.

[A SECOND UPDATE: Jonathan Foyle, vigilant about his splendid find, has visited this now rather intermittent and obscure blog, and posted the explanatory comment below - the banderole would have had a painted text. I simply hadn't thought of that. I leave my final paragraph below, which imputed too much eagerness to believe, but I should say that I too am now ready to believe.]

It's a wonderful object, convincingly Tudor. But I think it looks more Protestant Tudor than Catholic, and that Foyle has used great scholarly skill to over-interpret the bed design as proving it was made for Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. The Daily Mail is delighted with it, Hever Castle has a new royal attraction, and every newspaper account I have read about it so far accepts Foyle's scholarship as proof of something we perhaps want to believe too much.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

A reading cushion full of witchcraft sceptics:
A first edition Weyer, Scot from 1584 and 1651, John Webster, Francis Hutchinson

A visit yesterday to Senate House to look at a selection of items from the Harry Price Library. This year, the curator, Karen Attar, had the 20 or so books I had suggested arranged by topics: Demonologists, Sceptics, Victims, Astrology, the last English witchcraft conviction, and some miscellaneous.

What a collection it is! I had been in Toby English's Antiquarian bookshop over in Wallingford two weekends ago, and had casually asked him what he thought a 1520 edition of the Malleus Maleficarum might fetch on the open market. His first guess was for prices that might start at £10,000. Karen indicated that the collection preferred not to think in such terms. I wanted, I admit in rather a crude-minded way, to stress to my students just what treasures they were handling.

Karen Attar explains who Harry Price was.

A briefing before beginning

Rose and Rebecca look at sceptics

I had never seen a copy of Webster's 1677 book, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, and was interested to see that it was so handsome a volume. But Webster was a bibliophile who assembled a very large library of his own (where did he get the money for those atlases he bought?), so one might have expected that he would not have cheap job done when he finally achieved permission for the work.

Jane, one of our visitors from Shanghai, and Priyanka look at the collection's pristine copy of Scot, 1584

How to use your magic powers to make one dance naked (suborn a poor boy to do it, stop him before the company take offence)

Some of Scott's exposures of juggler's tricks: the decollation of John Baptist.

An early owner added a motto in Greek. I didn't make a transcript, and have no idea. I will find a classicist.

Gemma is looking at one of my 'must get round to reading' texts, Addison's 'The Drummer'. Rebecca has pencil and paper out to take notes, in the proper research collection fashion. Bottom left is a copy of 'Monsieur Oufle' in the English translation: one of my 'well, I tried to read it' texts.

More or less everyone in view

Karen gave us generous and up close access to these wonderful books, and whole-heartedly encouraged student readers to come and use the collection.

After this, I briefly showed a smaller group of the students the English Literature open shelves, after that, we strolled up the road to ULU, the University of London student union, with me pointing out that for a complete mind-and-body day, it has a swimming pool in the basement. There seemed to be some thought that a young male reader who had escaped my attention, but who was in the library in a suit, might make a worthwhile tertium quid. I left my students as they headed for the ULU cafe, and thought that at the very least, they'd feel a bit more members of this huge university, and might even seek out another experience of research.

My thanks again to Karen Attar - a favourite moment for me was one of the students asking about printers using the long s - and finding out that one of Karen's publications was an entry on the duration of long s type in British printing.

Saturday, January 03, 2015

Henry Holland is
the most comprehensible of the English demonologists. His methodology is
clearly apparent, his continental sources consistent and thoroughly cited.
There is no specific case that has set him off, so his discussion is general,
without those typical plunges into unaccountable allegations about the
behaviour of accused witches or reporting of bizarre court evidence. His
initial position, Calvinism, is obvious, a starting place that makes sense of
what follows. But above all else, Holland is interesting because he mixes
together utter conviction (witchcraft and worship of the devil follows quite
logically from his Calvinistic thinking about the corrupt human state) with a
use of dialogic form. This risky combination, while not extending to pro et contra argument about the very existence
of witchcraft, allows his own doubts plenty of room. While, in the end, an ideology
speaks loudest in his Treatise against
Witchcraft, he has confronted problems that other writers avoided, and
evidently believes that he has banished them.

I am interested
in the use of dialogue in demonological works: Daneau, King James, George Gifford,
Samuel Willard come to mind as other examples, Matthew Hopkins risked a
question and answer format for his rabid convictions. Gifford, Willard and
Holland use the format more honestly than King James (for instance). Though it
may aim at producing augmented conviction, a demonstration of how misguided
doubts about the veracity of witchcraft are, there is at least the chance of
reverse conviction. These are the passages of dialogue that the dramatists of
the period could only glance at, in those rare moments when a gentleman
expresses scepticism.

A
Treatise against Witchcraft is a dialogue between ‘Theophilus’,
the god-loving, and ‘Mysodaemon’, the devil-hating. One could not expect – at least
from 1590 - a dialogue between a demonologist and an outright sceptic about
witchcraft, but Holland gives us the next best thing. Mysodaemon is obviously named
to suggest that his basic opinions are sound: but he has been reading Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft, published six
years before. To refute Scot’s scepticism, Holland has to read him carefully.
Allowing two voices in his work gives scepticism a near-convert in Mysodaemon,
who is at times simply voicing confrontational passages from the Discovery. Dialogic form means that
Holland isn’t just arguing or haranguing his way through Scot, giving authorial
refutation of what he considered to be Scot’s errors: as a separate character
in the dialogue, Mysodaemon means that scepticism gets a decent airing.

Holland must have
been confident of success. He was committed to catechising as his basic method,
using a question and answer format in other works: in the catechistic model, an
instructor elicits the right answers from the instructee. This should be the
effect here: Mysodaemon’s wobblings straightened out by the firm assurance of
Theophilus.

What emerges,
though, always tends to suggest that Holland is in dialogue with himself, for
Theophilus is an authority under pressure, who resorts to hectoring and
bullying. Nor does Holland seem to have anticipated that Mysodaemon, voicing
Scot’s compassionate scepticism, simply appears more sympathetic than
Theophilus, who is too obviously keen for Christian magistrates to be punishing
sins, and continuously resorts to a set of bible texts that, try as he might,
do not in fact stretch to cover this new crimen
exceptum of witchcraft, with its dogma of sabbat, transvection,
shape-shifting, and diabolic pact. As such things are not in the bible’s
otherwise comprehensive listing of anathema, Theophilus keeps producing
continental demonologists as his authorities, which reduces him to proving the
existence of something by reference to those who asserted its existence.

No doubt Holland
considered that he had won this argument with himself: Mysodaemon’s citations
from Scot dwindle away and finally cease. The eagerly orthodox Theophilus
forces the debate on to new areas, however: it shifts from the reality of
witchcraft to the depravity of those who consult witches and sorcerers (this
was a common development in such texts, and Mysodaemon is simply too
indoctrinated, too elite, to make a general defence of the lower classes in
their unaccountable failure to follow the pious example of Job and suffer in
silence). Finally, the zealous minister in Theophilus embarks on detailing the
preservatives (Holland was fond of expounding ‘preservatives’, against plague
in Spirituall
Preservatives Against the Pestilence and here against
witchcraft), sketching out a household of such formidable godliness and
obedience that witchcraft can gain no purchase, and the assaults of Satan, if
they come, are accepted as trials ordained and permitted by God.

Mysodaemon
does express some incredulity about these prescriptions, but Theophilus huffily
says that he knows some local households that sustain such godly ideals.

Because he sees
the world as a battleground between faith and Satan, the local effect of
Holland’s writing is of frightening moral precariousness. It is best caught in
a snatch of dialogue from his History of
Adam:

“Next, for the
manner of Sathans working in men. As the holy Ghost works invisibly and
spiritually … even so the operation of wicked spirits in unbelievers is by an
invisible and secret breathing and suggestion…”

~ Here, an
authoritative voice coolly describes a peril that seems irresistible. The
supposed interlocutor then blurts out: “Quest.29. I feel often many strong motions
within me, which cause me to tremble, and I know not whence they come, for I
strive against them & I fear even to name them.”

The question
isn’t really a question at all, but a confession. To what extent are we
diabolically impelled? The comfort offered is thin: “Ans.All Gods people are so troubled in
like manner, much or little.” Such motions and thoughts are not the product of
original sin, nor are they from God (because they are evil), but “such strange
and sodaine motions must come into us by the secret working of Sathan. Let us
then rejoice that we do not entertain them but pray and strive ever against
them.”

You would think
that if he saw Christians as exposed to such impossibly demanding conditions,
witchcraft might erode away in the face of a moral relativism. But of course
not: those who by witchcraft take advantage of the circumstances God is pleased
to permit (of Satan being busy everywhere) simply must be punished.

The first part of
Holland’s short witchcraft treatise consists of Theophilus doing his best to
make the Bible sound to be full of eight distinct types of witchcraft: “If
there were no such sin, wherefore then are there so many kinds named and
distinguished?” It is very learned, but beside the
point: none of the cases match up to witchcraft in its recent definition. This
is the basic challenge Holland (as Mysodaemon) sets himself (as Theophilus):

“There are many
things which are said to be in the witches of our time, which were never heard
of in these old witches, mentioned in Scripture, as namely these points: their
transportations, their bargain with the Devil, their Sathanical sabaoths, their
ointments of the fat of young children, their transformations, and such like miracles
or wonders (as you say, Theophilus.) now prove all these, or any of these
points true in our witches, by Scripture, or any good reason, or authoritie,
and I will believe that we have also in our time right diabolical witches
indeed.”

Theophilus cannot
answer these particulars with particulars: he has to explain away, or
generalise away from the point. He wants the devil to be allowed formidable
power by God, but, despite that large divine permission, only capable of
delusions, supernatural in power, but not miraculous:

“I will not denie, Mysodaemon, but
the devil may delude his witches many ways in these transportations, & that
many fabulous pamphlets [Note: Faustus. Drunken Dunstan. art. & in
p. 156. Drunken
Dunstan seems to be a lost
work about the magic-practising saint] are published,
which give little light and less proof unto this point in controversie. This
first understand, that whatsoever is said of transportations, contrarie to the
nature of our bodies, as to ride on the moon to meet Herodias, &c. all such
things are indeed but mere delusions.”

But the delusiveness
of witches’ ‘experience’ is no excuse for the witch: Theophilus finds that
there are always other grounds for the punishment they deserve: “true it is,
manie of the common sort (I believe well) are not right witches indeed,
notwithstanding they are guiltie of other most vile sins, and most worthie of
death.”

As Mysodaemon pushes
his instructor hard for authority, Theophilus keeps wriggling away to prove
witchcraft out of those who described witchcraft. He tries to open up a space
in which those incredible acts and implausible delusions may in fact be truths
– flying ointment and transvection:

“we must not imagine
that all are but fables … Neither must we reject all the late Inquisitors,
which by the accusations, confessions, condemnations and executions of
innumerable magitians, have learned and gotten some credible experience of the
truth of transportations. Bodin and Danaeus have also sundrie late examples,
when thou hast opportunity, Mysodaemon, thou mayest read them.”

But Mysodaemon very
properly rejects this: “But I cannot
so like, Theophilus, of all these, as of one probable argument of Scripture.”

Holland
evidently thought that Scot had to be taken seriously, and formally repudiated
with convincing arguments. This was the service he thought he was giving. But
Mysodaemon, invented to be persuaded, starts to deliver Scot in Scot’s own
voice:

“I will
not hear, I tell you, neither of Bodins* [Dis. in the praeface. ] bables,
nor Sprengeus fables: I pray you shew me one
example out of some credible Author, if you can.”

Mysodaemon-as-Scot makes Theophilus
tie himself in knots to come up with answers to challenges: “But
you have not one syllable in all the Scriptures of God, to prove any such
league or covenant between Sathan and witches.”

Theophilus concedes:
“We have not indeed any such words or phrases, and yet may we truly conclude,
that there are such things, by Scripture; for the Scripture shewing us the
great readiness and acquaintance of Sathan, with the enchanters of Egypt, the
Pythonist of Endor and Philippi: do therein significantly give us to understand,
that there was some precontract and confederacie between them: for Sathan will
never work in such manner, but with whom he hath some league and acquaintance.”

The
assertion that Satan will only operate with those with whom he has a contract
is derived from contemporary positions: it is then read back into scripture as
something we must infer was happening, and this provides a scriptural basis for
the truth of it happening now.

Holland
is making the best of it, and he is at least being honest in the outright
concessions Theophilus has to keep making:

(Mysodaemon) “[Disco. epist. to the Reader.] Our
witches, strigae, lamiae, our witches are not once mentioned in Scripture: our
old woman, &c. you shall not reade in the Bible of any such Witches.

(Theophilus) “Albeit
the Scripture giveth us no such historical relations of the witches of our
time: yet are they mentioned there both in general and special manner: in
general, where all the sins of idolatrie … and blasphemie are condemned; in
special, where the like sins are named.”

Theophilus needs the
authority of scripture, but puts strain on the divine text to get it, making
analogies and resorting to category shifts: “And had not Sathan also a real
communication with Eve & many others? To be short, I
cannot see, but he that can do the greater, may do the less”.

As one recourse,
Theophilus has intimidation: the arguments of Scot (or Holland’s argument with
himself) constitute a slighting of the divine word:

“If any man consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is puffed up
and knoweth nothing, but doteth about questions and strife of words.”

To contradict demonology is a step on the slippery slope to disregard
of the bible’s teachings:

“You are over bold
now Mysodaemon with good writers, and I could somewhat bear
with this boldness, but take heed lest you be found insolent also against God in
the abuse of his blessed word, for that kind of pride is most dangerous.”

In the end, even
though he is losing this particular argument with himself, Henry Holland /Theophilus’
Calvinism has just too much need of evil, it relies on the existence of a
powerful devil: to subtract witchcraft threatens the system. Mysodaemon cites
Scot on the cessation of miracles and of oracles: “Oracles (as you know) are ceased, and no doubt whatsoever hath affinitie with such miraculous
actions, as witchcraft, conjuration, &c. it is knocked on the head, and
nailed on the cross with Christ, who hath broken the power of the devils. What
say you to this, Theophilus?”

Theophilus is brought
entirely into the open by this challenge. To make such a deduction is in his
mind ‘black divinity’: for in his system, the redemption was never meant to be
universal. The elect are secure in their election; for the rest, the power of
devils continues unchecked: “Surely I can but wonder, Mysodaemon, that
any should teach you by speech or by writing, such black divinity in this
bright shining light of the Gospel. For babes in Christianitie, understand that
Christ on his cross, hath so far forth broken the power of sin, as that it
shall never have strength to the condemnation … of his elect. But he never meant
so to take away sin, as that it should have no being in the world, much less to
knock in the head (as thine Author saith) the sins of Sathan & reprobates”.

Theophilus
goes on to denounce this reasoning in Scot as “impious & Anabaptisticall”,
which is either just broad abuse or a more specific insight into Reginald Scot,
who was some way along the route towards an allegorical rather than literal
understanding of the devil.

Mysodaemon
also tries out Scot’s legal argument, the view (famously cited by Sir Robert
Filmer in his Advertisement to the
jurymen of England touching witches) that in law accessories cannot be
convicted if the principal in a case has neither been convicted nor outlawed:

“I pray you give me
leave to speak what I can for our old women, for I am greatly aggrieved to see
the rude multitude so cruel against them, and some Judges so merciless, as to
put these poor innocents to death. I reason thus by law against this unjust crueltie:
I say she is injuriouslie dealt withall if she be the devils [Dis. in epist. ] instrument, in
practising his will, my reasons are. 1. She is put to death for anothers
offence. 2. Actions are not judged by instrumental causes: and
therefore I conclude these old women may not dye for Witchcraft.
This is Lawyers Logic I tell you … Theophilus, what can you
say to this?”

Theophilus has none of
it: “as for thine argument, if it be lawyers inventions, I tell
thee truelie, they be bad advocates in an evil cause. They reason as if they
would have the Honourable Judges to hang the devil, and to suffer the witches
to escape. The same reason may serve anabaptisticallie applied for a libertie
unto all sin …” His general point seems fair, though I don’t understand why he
uses ‘anabaptistically’ to characterise blaming all sins on the devil.

The
next argument taken from Scot’s series of trenchant challenges is that in our
judgements, we should imitate the example given by Christ of forgiveness:

“Christ did [Dis. p. 39. A gross error. ] clearly
remit Peter, though his offence were committed both against his divine and
humane [Divine and humane nature he would have said. ] person: yet afterwards
he did put him in trust to feed his sheep, &c. and therefore we see not but
we may shew compassion upon these poor souls, if they show themselves sorrowful
for their misconceits and wicked imaginations.”

Theophilus refutes this by
generalising it into an absurdity:

“This reason is unsufficient
and veryanabaptistical, for it
wrings out of the civil Magistrate’s hand all his power and jurisdiction. Shall
every penitent malefactor be delivered from a temporal punishment, farewell
then all execution of justice.” Of course extraordinary forgiveness does not
mean universal forgiveness – but Theophilus especially seems to want ‘execution
of justice’, there’s a relish for punishment. He continues with the assertion
that the civil Magistrate cannot be “remiss in bodily punishment and justice,
except he have an extraordinary warrant and revelation from God, for his
direction. The law is, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live: unless
the judge have warrant to repeal this law from Jesus Christ (as Peter had) all
witches lawfully convicted must have their punishments answerable to their
demerits. Again, thou dost not well to call our witchcraft misconceit &
wicked imagination, for I tell thee, it is more.”

The precise meaning
of the notorious Exodus 22: 18 had been debated between the two earlier, with
Mysodaemon citing, after Scot, the translation of mĕkaššēpâ
as a ‘poisoner’ rather than ‘witch’. Theophilus had blandly smoothed this over
by asserting that as witches most commonly killed by poison, as instructed by
Satan, both senses applied to the word in the text. Here, he just uses the
sense he wants, without his earlier admission of a wider meaning. A disputed
law from the Old Testament should be carried out in the Christian world without
worrying about any unhelpful example of Christ’s own forgiveness. A witch is,
in essence, a chance for the Christian magistrate to show that he is never
“remiss in bodily punishment and justice”. Until Jesus himself issues a repeal,
a message delivered - god knows how - of ‘Thou shalt suffer a mĕkaššēpâ to live’, all the saved can do is carry on executing.

In
the end, Theophilus’ best answer to Scot’s Discovery
of Witchcraft is to burn it. In the final stages of their discussion,
Mysodaemon has simply become a stooge to Theophilus, obtuse enough to cite
Scot’s exposure of conjuring tricks
as ‘profane’, ‘wicked’, ‘blasphemous’:

“First, I would
know what your judgement is of some big volumes of witchcraft, which (as far
as I can see) contain sundrie intolerable prophane and wicked
Treatises and forms of idle and vain jugglings and blasphemous conjurations.”

Theophilus is pleased
to be asked, and says that a certain type of reader will only go to Scot for
the wrong reasons, he then produces a piece of Roman Law

“Surely this I think, Mysodaemon, all the godly learned
men, who tenderly regard the good state of the Saints of God, are no doubt aggrieved
in heart to see such horrible impieties suffered to be broached in the open
face of the Church of God: for young wits are more apt to practise these wares
of Sathan which are thus put to sale, then to search for any good purpose in
them, which is most hard to be found. Again, this in a word I add, that the
Lawyers tell us such authors are overtaken by Law: for the Law saith: Libros
magicae artis apudse nemini habere licet, [The Dis. must be commended to Vulcan.] et si penes quoscunque
reperti sunt, bonis ademptis, ambustis{que} ijs publice, in insulam
deportantur, humiliores capite puniuntur. It is lawful for no man to
have the books of Magic, and with whomsoever they are found, their goods
confiscate, and their books openly burnt, they are banished, and the poorer
sort are punished with death. Avoid therefore, Mysodaemon, such
dreadful impieties, I warn thee.”

It might be said
against Holland that there is a tacit admission of failure in this: if you
can’t answer the book, and say, ‘let it be printed, but printed only when bound
up with my answer’, you have to ‘commend [The
Discovery of Witchcraft] to Vulcan’, as he rather coyly puts it (did he not
want to spell it out directly?).

Holland’s book is a
tribute to Reginald Scot’s effectiveness. He did not de-convince himself (if
you have swallowed double predestination, you are not going to worry about a
few reprobates getting rough justice). But an objective reader – if such a
person did exist in late 16th century England – might well have been
more struck by the case against the veracity of witchcraft than the
elasticised, self-referential and hectoring case for belief.